Wildrose win Calgary-Foothills - by the numbers

Hamish MarshallRebel Commentator

All the pundits were wrong. When the Calgary-Foothills by-election was called for the Thursday before Labour Day everyone expected turnout to be terrible.

The folks in this riding had voted last fall in a by-election that put Jim Prentice into the Legislature, then again in the spring in the general election and now a third time to replace Prentice after his disgraceful resignation before the ballots were even counted.

But people were mad and they came and voted on the last Thursday of summer. Almost 13,000 people voted – a turnout of around 40%. More people voted than did in last fall’s by-election. And they voted against the NDP.

Notley’s orange wave was strong enough for a respectable 32% and second place in the spring. But in the by-election they dropped back to only 26%. For all the talk about how Alberta has changed – the results are clear after a few months in power, more people are voting against the NDP than before. Calgary Foothills is swath of suburban North West Calgary populated by families dependent on the oil industry. The results make it pretty obvious what these folks think of how the Notely government is running the show.

But the biggest drop was reserved for the PC’s. Prentice got 58% a year ago, which dropped to 40% in the spring. This by-election saw them with only 22% of the vote. They dropped 36% in less than a year. This is a party dying before our eyes. If they had that kind of drop in one of their safest seats, imagine how they are doing in the rest of province.

The biggest movers were the Wildrose - surging more than 20% to win handily. This is a huge swing, especially in a by-election that was supposed to be close. If this kind of swing was replicated across the province there would be a Wildrose majority government.

People were mad, they came out to punish the PC’s for abandoning them and the NDP for damaging Alberta’s economy. They weren’t put off by election fatigue or by good weather. They wanted to send a message and they did: the Wildrose is the only party that will fight for Alberta jobs and common sense government.

Comments

Peter – If we defund the CBC, then the other MSM players will be forced to clean up their acts, and start reporting in a professional manner. We need to throw out the bad apple first, and then it will be easier to weed out the rest of the lamestream media. The fact that they continue to insult a certain portion of the taxpayers, who are paying for this circus, speaks volumes.

Peter – it doesn’t agree with the narrative, so they won’t promote it. They’ll put it on the back pages so that it can’t be said that they didn’t cover it. And don’t expect the comments to stay open for long.

You would think that this by-election would have at least made it onto the CBC’s politics page, but no. It would have if the NDP would have won. It is there under local / Calgary. But of course they phrase it as a “tight race”. The implication in the CBC article is “just barely”.

Well, now they have 22 seats, a stronger opposition and a clear message to Notley that she isn’t “Queen of Alberta” and that Albertans are watching her … well, at least the intelligent ones are anyway.

Congratz to MPP Prasad Panda! A strong voice for the oil and gas sector.

Watching for coverage on the news, in Edmonton, you’d have wondered if there even was an election. This was a massive message, already being played down by Notley. Can you imagine the coverage if the NDs had won? It would have been covered from hell to Hanover. I’d be surprised if anyone in High River heard.

Awesome, Wildrose should be running Alberta now. Its to bad Alberta voters didn’t look two provinces over to NDP shit hole Manitoba before they voted the NDP into power. The left has run Manitoba into the ground for the past 17 years now. We have a lot of stupid people in MB.

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